have bestowed on him faculties endowed with high susceptibility of action, and to have surrounded him with scenes, objects, circumstances, and relations calculated to maintain them in activity; although this latter arrangement necessarily subjects him to suffering while ignorant, and renders his first ascent in the scale of improvement difficult and slow.

Not only is Man really benefited by the arrangement which leaves him to discover the natural laws for himself, although, during the period of his ignorance, he suffers much evil from want of acquaintance with them; but the progress which he has already made towards knowledge and happiness must, from the very extent of his experience, be actually greater than can at present be perceived. Its extent will become more obvious, and his experience itself more valuable, after he has obtained a view of the true theory of his constitution. He will find that past miseries have at least exhausted numerous errors, and he will know how to avoid thousands of paths that lead to pain in short, he will then discover that errors in conduct, like errors in philosophy, give additional importance and practicalness to truth, by the demonstration which they afford of the evils attending departures from its dictates. The grand sources of human suffering at present are bodily disease and mental anxiety; and in the following chapters these will be traced to infringement, through ignorance or otherwise, of physical, organic, moral, or intellectual laws, which, when understood, appear in themselves calculated to promote the happiness of the race.

:

It may be supposed that, according to the view presented in Chapter IV., enjoyment will decrease as knowledge accumulates; but ample provision is made against this event by withholding intuition from each generation as it appears on the stage. Each must acquire knowledge for itself; and, provided ideas are suited to the faculties, the pleasure of acquiring them from instructors is second only to that of discovering them ourselves. It is probable, moreover, that many ages will elapse before all the facts and relations of nature shall have been explored, and the possibility of discovery exhausted. Indeed, if the universe be infinite, knowledge can never be complete.

The second question is, Has Man really advanced in happiness in proportion to his increase in knowledge? We are apt to entertain erroneous notions of the pleasures enjoyed

in past ages. Fabulists have represented ignorant men as peaceful, innocent, and gay; but if we look narrowly into the conditions of savage and barbarian life in the present day, and recollect that these were the states of all nations before they acquired scientific knowledge, we shall not much or long regret the pretended diminution of enjoyment by civilisation.* The superiority of the latter condition becomes certain when we discover that, until the intellect is extensively informed, and the moral sentiments are duly exercised, the animal propensities bear the predominant sway; and that wherever these are supreme, misery is an inevitable concomitant.

It ought also to be kept constantly in remembrance that Man is a social being, and that the precept 'Love thy neighbour as thyself" is imprinted in his constitution. That is to say, so much of the happiness of each individual depends on the habits, practices, and opinions of the society in which he lives, that he cannot reap the full benefits of his own advancement until similar principles have been embraced and realised in practice by his fellow-men. This renders it his interest, as it is his duty, to communicate his knowledge to them, and to carry them forward in the career of improvement.

At this moment, there are thousands of persons who feel their enjoyments, physical, moral, and intellectual, impaired and abridged by the mass of ignorance and prejudice which everywhere surrounds them. They are men living before their age, and whom the world neither understands nor appreciates. Let them not, however, repine or despair; but let them dedicate their best efforts to communicating the truths which have presented to themselves the best prospects of happiness, and they will not be disappointed.

The law of our constitution which has established the superiority of the moral sentiments renders it impossible for enlightened men to attain the full enjoyment of their own rational nature until they have rendered their fellowmen also virtuous and happy. In the truth and power of this principle, the ignorant and the wretched have a guarantee from Nature for the efforts of their more fortunate brethren being devoted to their elevation. If all ranks of the people were taught the philosophy which I am now

*See on this subject the excellent treatise on The New Zealanders, p. 360, in the "Library of Entertaining Knowledge."

advocating, and if, in so far as it is true, it were acted on by legislators, and enforced by religious instructors as the will of the Creator made known to Man through His natural institutions, the progress of general improvement would be greatly accelerated.

If the views now advocated shall ever prevail, it will be seen that the experience of past ages affords no sufficient reason for limiting our estimate of Man's capabilities of civilisation. At present he is obviously but little advanced in his career. Although knowledge of external nature, and of himself, is indispensable to his progress towards his true station as a rational being, yet little more than four centuries have elapsed since the arts of printing and engraving were invented without which, knowledge could not be disseminated through the mass of the people. And even now the means of calling Man's rational nature into activity, although discovered, are but very imperfectly applied. It is only five or six centuries since the mariner's compass became known in Europe: without which even philosophers could not ascertain the most common facts regarding the size, form, and productions of the earth. It is only four hundred years since one-half of the habitable globe, America, became known to the other half; and considerable portions of it are still unknown to the best-informed geographers. It is little more than two centuries and a half since the circulation of the blood was discovered, previously to which it was impossible for even physicians to form any correct idea of the uses of many of Man's corporeal organs, and of their relations to external nature.

Haller, who flourished in the middle of the eighteenth century, may be regarded as the founder of Human Physiology as a science of observation. It was only towards the conclusion of the same century that the functions of the brain and nervous system were discovered before which, Man possessed no adequate means of becoming acquainted with his mental constitution and its adaptation to external circumstances and beings. Not till the year 1774 was the study of Chemistry, or of the constituent elements of the globe, put into a philosophical condition by Dr. Priestley's discovery of oxygen; nor did hydrogen become known till 1766. Before that time, men were comparatively ignorant of the qualities and relations of the most important material agents with which they were surrounded. Electricity became a science only in the last century; galvanism was discovered

in 1794, and gas-light about 1798; while steam-boats, steamlooms, steam-carriages, the safety-lamp, and the electric telegraph are inventions still more recent.

It is only in the present century that the study of Geology has been seriously begun without which we could not know the past changes in the physical structure of the globe-a matter of much importance in judging of our present position in the world's progress. This science also is still far from maturity: an inconceivable extent of territory remains to be explored, from the examination of which many interesting and instructive conclusions will probably be drawn. In Astronomy, too, the discoveries of its modern cultivators promise to throw additional light on the early history of the globe.

The Mechanical Sciences are at this moment in full play, putting forth vigorous shoots, and giving the strongest indications of youth, and none of decline.

The sciences of Morals and of Government are, in many respects, still in a crude condition.

In consequence, then, of his profound ignorance, Man, in all ages, has generally been directed in his pursuits by the mere impulse of his strongest propensities formerly to war and conquest, and now to the accumulation of wealthwithout having framed his habits and institutions in conformity with correct views of his own nature, and of its real interests and wants. During past ages nature has been constantly operating on Man; but in consequence of his ignorance of its laws, he has not generally accommodated his conduct to its influence, and hence has suffered countless evils.

This condition of things continues in a great measure to exist. Up to the present day, the mass of the people in every country have remained essentially ignorant, the tools of interested leaders or the creatures of their own blind impulses, unfavourably situated for the development of their rational nature; and they, constituting the great majority, necessarily influence the condition of the rest. But at last the arts and sciences seem to be tending towards the abridging of human labour, so as to give leisure to the mass of the people; while the elements of useful knowledge are so rapidly increasing, the capacity of the operatives for instruction is so generally recognised, and the means of communicating it are so powerful and abundant, that a new era may fairly be considered to have begun.

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CHAPTER VI.

INFRINGEMENT OF THE PHYSICAL AND THE ORGANIC LAWS. I PROCEED now to the consideration of some of the evils that have afflicted the human race, and to inquire whether they have proceeded from neglect of laws, benevolent and wise in themselves, and calculated, when observed, to promote the happiness of Man, or from a defective or vicious constitution of nature. The following extract from the Journal of John Locke contains a forcible statement of the principle which I intend to illustrate: "Though justice be also a perfection which we must necessarily ascribe to the Supreme Being, yet we cannot suppose the exercise of it should extend further than His goodness has need of it for the preservation of His creatures in the order and beauty of the state that He has placed each of them in; for since our actions cannot reach unto Him, or bring Him any profit or damage, the punishments He inflicts on any of His creatures, i.e., the misery or destruction He brings upon them, can be nothing else but to preserve the greater or more considerable part; and so, being only for preservation, His justice is nothing but a branch of His goodness, which is fain by severity to restrain the irregular and destructive parts from doing harm."*

SECT. I.-EVILS ARISING FROM DISREGARD OF THE PHYSICAL LAWS.

The proper way of viewing the Creator's institutions is to look first at their uses, and the advantages that flow from using them aright; and secondly, at their abuses, and the evils that proceed from this source.

In Chapter II., some of the benefits conferred on Man by the law of gravitation were enumerated; and I may here advert to some of the evils originating from the disregard of that law in human conduct. For example, men are liable to fall from horses, carriages, stairs, precipices, roofs, chimneys, ladders, and masts, and also to slip in the street-by

*Lord King's "Life of Locke," Vol. I., p. 229; Lond., 1830.